The Changing Style Of Tranmere Rovers

In the space of less than a year the football style being deployed at Prenton Park has changed massively, clearly the change of manager was what led to this but just why have the results turned around so drastically?

Let's go back twelve months to Les Parry's reign as Tranmere Manager. At this stage towards the end of December we had seen a disastrous run of  six defeats and one draw from seven games in all competitions, after thirteen days off between December 17th and December 30th we saw the team win 2-0 at home to Bury, after that the "one win in twenty" phase began, our next win wasn't until March 10th, a few days after Ronnie Moore had returned as manager.

Now, what went wrong for Les? I'm far from a football expert, indeed I have no coaching badges or anything of the sort but having watched every home and quite a few away games during that spell under Mr. Parry I feel I can give something of a educated view on the whole affair. In my view and the view of many Tranmere fans the problem was a relatively clear one, the formation; Parry played a rigid 4-5-1 which he continually insisted was 4-3-3, the striker (whether it be Showunmi or Tiryaki) was left on his own with nobody around him, the wingers often refused to move inside and instead hugged the touchline at every opportunity. In McGurk and Devaney we lacked supply for the sole striker and all too often on the rare occasion the ball did find its way into the opposition penalty area from a cross the attacker was outnumbered by two stronger and taller central defenders. The returns of main strikers Tiryaki (3 goals in 30 games) and Showunmi (14 goals in 70 games) during Parry's tenure emphasise the lack of chances we made. The only time we seemed to score goals was when we did our usual hoof to the striker and the ball either ricocheted off the striker into the path of whichever midfielder decided to try and support him or the ball hit a defender before bouncing to one of our players in lucky fashion. Looking back the football we played really was appalling and how I went into matches optimistic I don't know.

Now let's move forward twelve months to the football we see under Ronnie Moore. Ronnie took over with the team in a poor position and by finishing the season with a record of six wins, four draws and three defeats he more than earned the job on a full-time basis. In the summer he re-designed the squad, for me a few pieces of look were on our side (for once) firstly amongst the players we offered new contracts to John Welsh and David Buchanan were the only ones to turn us down, Welsh was a player who did little wrong last season but on reflection that probably disguised his lacklustre uninspiring performances. Buchanan was voted the player of the season (and indeed he got my vote) but he was a left back who defended well but rarely got forward and when he did was often left unsure as to where he should be standing - the team lacked organisation. The replacement for Welsh was Palmer, like Welsh before him he is expected to do the easy things but occasionally offer some flair going forward, from what I have seen of the Sheffield Wednesday loanee so far it is vital we can extend his loan deal until the end of the season - he is showing real quality and doing better than Welsh did with a similar role expected of him. Instead of David Buchanan we now play Zoumana Bakayogo at left back who is an extremely fast full back who has really come into his own this season defending brilliantly and overlapping the winger effectively in most performances, I did not expect "Zoom" to do such a good job but in the absence of Buchanan's direct replacement Paul Black through injury we have seen Bakayogo excel. The other player who left the club without being released was Lucas Akins who requested a transfer before moving to Stevenage in a rumoured £75,000 deal. Akins was the running joke amongst Tranmere fans for quite a while - he ran but all too often lacked the finish or cross expected of him, while most fans would have been content to see him stay getting a fee like that for him was seen as a goof bit of business. His replacement was Joe Thompson, signed for a fee rumoured to be below the one we received for Akins. While Thompson hasn't been the standout player this season he has done a good job when called upon on the wing, happy to supply the full back and confident holding the ball up, he also grabbed the vital solemn goal away at Notts County which led to amazing scenes in the away section at Meadow Lane. As well as these players coming in Ronnie also secured the services of Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro, Jake Cassidy, Ben Gibson, James Wallace, Abdulai Bell-Baggie, Paul Black and Jason Mooney. Max Power and Cole Stockton have progressed from the youth team and all of these players aside from Black who has had an injury-riddled start to his career have jelled into the new fluid style of play employed by Moore. 

When at our optimum we play the ball around with real pace and effectiveness, we look to get the ball to Wallace or Palmer, then on to Cassidy or Akpa Akpro and then either play it wide to Bell-Baggie or Robinson or a neat through-ball to whichever striker is not in possession. This has lead to great attacking football and a great number of chances being created, games against Colchester and Notts County come to mind as great attacking performances. Defensively we battle for everything and look composed when winning the ball, backed up by Owain fon Williams  the side have the best goal difference in the league thanks in no small part to our brilliant Welsh goalkeeper. Unfortunately injuries have hit the squad hard - at the time of writing we are without Black, Gibson (whose loan spell looks to be over) Bell-Baggie, Wallace and Akpa Akpro - for a small squad with a low budget this has been crippling. However we remain top of the table and while the football going forward hasn't been quite so strong we remain top of the table. In Max Power we saw a potential star of the future away at Sheffield United on Saturday and we have seen glimpses of what Cole Stockton could do should his talent be developed properly.

Whatever happens this season we have improved so much since last season under Les Parry that we can be forgiven for forgetting just how bad it was at times. The feeling around the club has gone from one of dull boring football and low crowds to excitement and at the back of most fans despite us not even being half way through the season yet a real hope that promotion could be on the cards. Should we finish outside of the top six it will be extremely disappointing but at the same time we must reflect on just how far we have come in twelve months, the end of the season is a long way - anything is possible. Super White Army!! 

Still Top Of The League!

I was at Prenton Park on Saturday to see Tranmere draw with a Portsmouth side struggling to put out a team and with no permanent manager in place. They are currently managed by caretaker Guy Whittingham following the departure of Michael Appleton to Blackpool and had not won a match in eight going into this clash at Prenton Park.

The first half was a cagey encounter, a few drummers operated at the bottom of the kop who made a bit of noise but the fans were more confused as to why their ears were suddenly being invaded by a few beats of the drum and sticks hitting together than interested in adding to the "beat". Portsmouth appeared to have more of the ball without creating any real goal scoring opportunities, when Tranmere took the lead in the 31st minute through Ash Taylor it was out of nowhere, the free-kick was a good one and the connection Taylor got on the header left Pompey goalkeeper Eastwood with no chance. The remainder of the first half was played out without much incident.

Half-time saw the pitch announcer inform the three men doing the "rock the crossbar challenge" that he had never seen all three contestants hit the crossbar successfully on the same day and that he felt confident today would be the first time all three qualify for the semi-final. Whether they did or not I don't know - I was in the unnecessarily long line for a hot chocolate, by the time I got to the till they had run out! I returned to my seat to jokingly inform my friend that it was his fault the half time entertainment had never had a 100% crossbar hitting success rate, last season me and another guy had hit it whilst my friend had missed all three attempts!

Onto the second half and after another cagey first few minutes Gyepes equalised for Portsmouth, based on the first half they probably deserved this goal but the manner in which we conceded it - all of the defenders stood still as Pompey's monstrous central defender ran through and headed it simply past fon Williams - was disappointing. When former Tranmere loanee Jake Jervis came on for Portsmouth in the 69th minute the Tranmere fans had a bit of a laugh, he was generally considered a bad player during his short spell at Prenton Park. Gradually we grew into the game and took a deserved lead in the 73rd minute through Michael O'Halloran after some brilliant skill from Andy Robinson put the ball on a plate. The celebrations ended up being extraordinarily short-lived, football is a funny old game and yes, you guessed it, Jake Jervis equalised about fifteen seconds after the restart, delight had turned to a feeling of "how did we know he was going to score?" football is a funny old game. As the game opened up, players tired and gaps in the pitch became bigger Liam Palmer almost won it for us after a good run, however his shot when one-on-one with Eastwood was straight at the goalkeeper, his and the Tranmere supports frustration was clear to see. After seeing Doncaster and Brentford score in injury time at Prenton Park this season we feared for the worse, Scott Allan somehow found himself inside the penalty area but thanks to Ian "god" Goodison's pressure he put it just wide. We left the ground with mixed emotions - after going 2-1 up at home we should have held out for the win and combined with Palmer's late miss we maybe should have won the game, however the miss from Allan right at the death saved us a point.

The usual routine of checking the other scores on our phones begun and we soon realised we were still top of the league. The team who went into this game joint on points with ourselves, Doncaster, had drawn with Swindon and a recent slight blip in form meant Sheffield United's win over Carlisle left them third. I was pleased to see national hate-figure MK Dons had lost to Brentford until I realised Brentford are now fourth and only two points behind us!

At the other end of the table Hartlepool had lost (again) meaning they are now a massive eleven points off safety, take the ten points Portsmouth are being deducted into account and it's thirteen points. A minor miracle is needed if they are to stay up, with the season not even halfway through saying that shows just how bad their results have been this campaign. The other team I always back to lose on the football coupon, Bury, also lost this time against Leyton Orient, they are only one point off safety though so with 25 games still to play they will be optimistic they can move away from the relegation zone under new boss Kevin Blackwell.

Mathematically by 5pm next Saturday we could be in fourth position... typical Tranmere fan, always pessimistic! However Sheffield United are certainly beatable and we are statistically still the best team in the league... bring on Bramall Lane!